As this week’s release of government numbers on unemployment and jobs highlight, the American economy is puttering along in the slow lane. And while few things in life are more frustrating than being stuck in the passenger seat of that car, it certainly beats crashing.

The second gear syndrome of our current economic life doesn’t sit well in a culture that demands more. Our macroeconomic numbers may be stable, but they obscure vast differences in affluence and opportunity, depending on where you live, what you do, what ethnicity you identify with, and how educated you are. The official unemployment rate, now at 7.4 percent, has been ticking down, but it is simply a statistic. It says nothing about the quality of those jobs, hours worked, wages paid, and needs met. Those are the questions we need to attend to.

Instead, in Washington at least, the economic discussion is currently dominated by the debate over who will be the next chair of the Federal Reserve. The story has the perfect makings of a Washington horse race. The lead contender, Larry Summers, engenders passions both for and against, while the main challenger, longtime Fed governor Janet Yellen, has captured the anti-Summers vote. Meanwhile, former Fed governor and current head of TIAA-CREF Roger Ferguson, has emerged as a compromise candidate, though no one is quite clear how his name first surfaced, and the New York Times is reporting Obama is interviewing only three people – Summers, Yellen and Donald Kohn, a former Fed vice chairman.